Everything We Know About the Youtube Shooting

From ELLE

On Tuesday afternoon this week (April 3), a woman stormed the California headquarters of YouTube and shot three people before taking her own life.

The suspected attacker has been named as Nasim Aghdam, a 39-year-old woman from San Diego.

The San Bruno police department said they arrived on the scene to find "numerous employees fleeing the premises." A 36-year-old man was left in critical condition, a 32-year-old woman was in serious condition, and a 27-year-old woman was in fair condition, a spokesman for San Francisco General Hospital said.

At this time, police are saying there is no evidence the shooter knew the victims or that they were specifically targeted.

Authorities are still investigating the motive for the shooting, but what could have led this woman to carry out such an awful crime?

Movements Before the shooting

Aghdam's father has said he reported his daughter missing on Monday after she failed to answer her phone for two days. She was reportedly found asleep in a car by police. Her father is saying he warned the police she might be heading to YouTube because she "hated" the company. The Mountain View Police spokesperson did not respond to the claims that police had warned Aghdam was heading to the video giant's headquarters.

YouTube

Anonymous police sources have said Aghdam had a longstanding dispute with YouTube. Aghdam, who is thought to have posted many videos onto her account with the website, accused YouTube of "filtering" her channels to stop her getting views. Her father said she was also "angry" that YouTube had allegedly stopped paying her for the content she was producing.

Her brother told the local Mercury News: "She was always complaining that YouTube ruined her life."

She had a number of channels on Youtube (all of which are now deleted) with some strange videos, some of which were dedicated to veganism and working out. Other channels were in Farsi and Turkish as well as English. She was also prominent on Facebook and Instagram, but her pages on these platforms have now also been taken down.

Background

Aghdam's family came to California from Iran in 1996. Her father Ismail said his daughter was a vegan activist and animal lover, and she had even established an anti-animal cruelty charity.

Her brother Shahran added that his sister had never hurt anyone up until now and that he had no idea where she would have got hold of a gun.

YouTube's Response

The attack happened at YouTube's famous headquarters in San Bruno, California. A few years ago the company, which is owned by Google, even fitted a slide into the office. Staff have also been encouraged to transport themselves around the office on scooters, play golf on a putting green in the lobby and use the "nap pods" to catch up on sleep.

A spokesperson for YouTube said Tuesday felt like "the entire community of YouTube, all of the employees, were victims of this crime". The CEO Susan Wojcicki tweeted that the company's hearts go out to the people injured and impacted by the crime.

Additional reporting by the Associated Press.

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